Bypassing The Bulldog Call Center....Here's my problem & solution

[Bulldog 0/10]

When I joined Bulldog 15 months ago, all was well. The connection to their service was excellent. On 8th August I upgraded to their 8mb service (from 1mb) and they also took over my BT Phone line. The phone line crackles when another person is trying to call, and the voicemail has to be activated with a code (with they never supplied) - in fact there are no instruction for new users supplied.

My main problem is however with their broadband service. Since the upgrade on 8th Aug, I have had no broadband service, and have had to spend £30 on a dial-up modem and an AOL dial up service. On reporting the problem, I had no information, no call-backs, and no progression for 5 days. I call them everyday, and nobody in the 1st line technical support can satisfy my queries. They refuse to let me talk with any of the management team...however I did manage to convince one person to let me talk to a "Team Leader" - Jean. She listened, promised to escalate the problem and call me back - she did half of what she promised, but failed to call me back with a resolution.

I have homed in on the root causes of their issues:

1. The 1st Line Technical Support teams do not have any experience dealing with customers who have a technical problem over and above simple issues, such as "forgetting passwords & user names). They opened up a new call centre in July, and most of this team started then....from gaining bits and pieces of info, I concluded that they are all ****ed off with their jobs, as customer complaints are not being resolved and they are in the firing line over and over again.

2. There is no phone contact between 1st and 2nd line technical support...and even between Team leaders and call centre management. So they cant get answers for the customer immediatly...the customer has to call back. They can only email the 2nd line tech people (these are the people who supposidly solve issues like mine).

3. They expect you to be by your PC when the tech team calls - what about if you are at work? If you are on your phone when they call - then they dont call back - just leave a voice mail saying they called. They dont leave a phone number, or their name, so you're back to square one - calling the call centre to tell them to email the 2nd line people to call you AGAIN!!! How frustrating is this....very!.

4. Their Customer Service line is constantly engaged, and your are in a queue (with no way of knowing how long) for 1 hr plus.... even if you call at 8am. When you get through they are rude, unhelpful and just tell you to speak to technical. Their is no ownership of your issue, no explanation of any processes by which you can escalate your issue. Their is no understanding of your problem and the heartache, waste of time that their poor service is causing.

5. Their options on their voice system is wrong - option 3 for customer service actually goes through to their billing dept. I tried 3 times and got the same result each time. This is a reflection of their inability to handle customer complaints.

6. Their HQ (26 Red Lion Square) telephone number (0207 164 1000) is a permanent voicemail....nobody answers, nobody calls back.

The only progress I managed to achieve was by calling Cable and Wireless HQ in Milton Keynes (01908 845000). The receptionist commented that they have a lot of Bulldog complaints. She put me through to her Manager (Mr Mike Broad), who said he would escalate my problem to "Bulldog Executive Complaints" Dept....am awaiting their call! However it is possible to be connected to the CEO of Bulldog via this number. I think by calling C&W and hassling their managers...this will get some action.
Regards,
John

[cheeky2004]

This is absolutely shocking service from Bulldog.

It seems to me that once you sign up they plainly don't care if you have a problem, and the fact that the options are wrong on the phone system is fishy..."oh yeh lets send em all through to billing, they have have to call back and just end up int he same loop, so we never have to deal with the problem."

I've had a similar experience with Hertz rent a Car who took £250 of my mony from my credit card for damage to a car I hired in Italy. The car was not even damage, just the number plate fell off!
It took me 9 months of emailing, calling, hasling etc to get any decent answers from hertz. I could never get through to 2nd level customer services, I just kept getting someone who claimed to be a team leader/manager, but didn't have the power to do ANYTHING.

I just kept hassling hasling until they eventually copped up and refunded the money with 101 apologies.

I also had similar problems with BT. When you call them with a problem the customer support staff (if your lucky you manage to get a uk one) cannot speak directly to the engineers, they have to one of three options on their screen. if your query or complaint isn't one of the three options you are stuffed and they don't know what to do!

We all have to remember that it is not the call centre staff themselves who put the rules and systems in place, but I'll be the first to admit it is them I shout at. I guess this is what ****es them off, as the company, such as Bulldog do not train them, or give them a decent system to work with.

The responsibility lies with the company directors. In many of these companies you have the powers that be making dicisions around a meeting table about issues they have no idea about. They never go into the call centre they own and talk to their staff to find out the impact of their decisions. many directors are blind to what really goes on, they seem to think they offer a great service and all their customers are happy.

if I was you I would definately write directly to them, and send multiple copies to as many people as possible so it doesn't just end up in a secretaries file tray. One of them will reach somebody who will read it and open their eyes to whats going on.

My isp have excellent customer services. I can email them online and watch as the email is escalated to 2nd level if need be, and see all comments and replies, and sometimes I've had a reply within half an hour, usually no longer than 4-5 hours. it tells you online what the current average response time is.

I can also phone them and before I do that I can go online and see what the call waiting time is currently, and see what the quietest times of the day are. When I do call, I rarely have to wait very long, if at all, and the person at the other end is always clued up totally and knows what I'm talking about.

And all that is 24/7.

Thats excellent customer service, and Bulldog want to take a leaf from their book. I hope you get sorted, and I urge you to go ahead with the letter(s). In the long run, people like you who take the time to push forward complaints of this nature help improve the services we all receive from the companies we deal with either in business or privately.

Kind Regards
Simon Gamble

[Bulldog 0/10]

Simon,
Which ISP are you with ?
Thanks,
John

[cheeky2004]

Hi John

I'm with Plusnet

Cheers
Simon

[speedtouchguru]

Hmmmso sounds like Bulldog have got multiple call centres......sounds like a right mess

Makes Tesco tech support sound almost professional

[Bulldog 0/10]

Today I was so annoyed, I read a forum site which listed about 40 Bulldog management email addresses...I fired off my complaint letter to all of them. 15 mins later the Head of Tech Support called my, did some tests on my line and amazingly the damm broadband works at 8Mb.....bemused...I am totally bemused. the guy who helped me (Dan Dryesdale) is an absolute star. He is the first person in Bulldog who appologised for the service I received. He took 100% ownership of my problem. He was polite and had a good manner about him. There are miracles in this world!!!!

[silver]

poor customer service indeed,.

glad you've got it working now

did they let on what the problem was?

Sil

[cheeky2004]

Is it worth pasting those emails here, or putting a link to them, so its helpful to anyone else who comes across this post when searching for bulldog problems in the search engines.

Glad to hear you got the problem sorted. That guy sounds one in a million.

Trouble is with many companies is that they don't value their staff therefore their staff can't be arsed becuase they don't feel valued... Poor management, which goes back to what I said earlier int his post about directors not knowing what goes on in their own company.

Good luck with the 8mb, you know who to call if anything goes wrong...your new best buddy!

[Hawkeye]

Just wanted to say the continuing "service" I receive from Bulldog is f'ing appaulling.

Melinda at customer support was supposed to ring me back one day after I was trying for 2 weeks to see why Bulldog had messed with my account. but did she? like hell. I said to her "Please Melinda, you will contact me to let me know what is going on wont you? I only ask because I have been told this countless times and I never hear back."

"Dont worry" she promised.

You'd think Australians and New Zealand staff would be trust worthy but it appears not.


5 days later I phoned (finally got through after 1 hour) and was told by an operator that "case closed, customer contacted and satisfied" was put on the record. - - - -- - - F-ing cheek. Problem not resolved and me told nothing about it.

Anyhow, just wanted to fill you in, especially if you thinking of signing up with this nightmare company. If you do you are nuts. They are are pathetic excuse for an ISP.


bye.

1st & 2nd line can talk to each other as they are in the same building and 99% of the time sat on the same floor